not be insulted if she offered me, as from a poor Gipsy woman, a shilling to help me in the work of getting a law passed to compel the Gipsies to send their children to school. I took the shilling, and, after making her a present of a copy of the new edition of my ‘Cry of the Children from the Brick-yards of England,’ which she wrapped in a beautiful white cloth, and after a shake of the hand, we parted, hoping to meet again on some future day.” The foregoing letter brought forth the following letter from Mr. Daniel Gorrie, and appeared in the _Daily News_ under date September 13th, as under:—“Mr. George Smith, Coalville, Leicester, whose letter on the above subject appears in your impression to-day, succeeded so well in his efforts on behalf of the poor slave-children of the Midland brick-yards, that it is to be hoped he will attain equal success in drawing attention to the pitiful condition of the Gipsy children, who are allowed to grow up as ignorant as savages that never saw the face nor heard the voice of a Christian missionary. In one of the late Thomas Aird’s poems, entitled ‘A Summer Day,’ there are some lines which, with your permission, I should like to quote, that are in perfect accord with Mr. Smith’s wise and kindly suggestion. The lines are these:— “‘In yonder sheltered nook of nibbled sward, Beside the wood, a Gipsy band are camped; And there they’ll sleep the summer night away. By stealthy holes their ragged, brawny brood Creep through the hedges, in their pilfering quest Of sticks and pales to make their evening fire. Untutored things scarce brought beneath the laws And meek provisions of this ancient State. Yet is it wise, with wealth and power like hers, To let so many of her sons grow up In untaught darkness and consecutive vice? True, we are jealous, free, and hate constraint And every cognisance, o’er private life; Yet, not to name a higher principle, ’Twere but an institute of wise police That every child, neglected of its own, State claimed should be, State seized and taught and trained To social duty and to Christian life. Our liberties have limbs, manifold; So let the national will, which makes restraint Part of its freedom, oft the soundest part, Power-arm the State to do the large design.’ “The above lines, I may add, were written by the poet (in losing whom Mr. Thomas Carlyle lost one of his oldest and most valued friends) many, many years before the Education Acts now in force came into existence. As many parents might not like the idea of Gipsy children attending the same Board schools as their own, would it not be possible to establish special schools in those parts of the Midland counties where Gipsies ‘most do congregate’?”